What better place to teach geology than
the Grand Canyon? Exposed there is
a large slice through the rock record
of a major part of earth history. Every year
we take groups through the Grand Canyon,
and people see in-depth
the compelling evidence
for the global, cataclysmic
Genesis Flood.

Overwhelmed by this evidence,
a common response
is: “How could most scientists
be wrong about its
formation?” If the evidence
for the catastrophic accumulation of the rock
record and its contained fossils in only a year
or so, rather than over millions of years, is so
compelling, why don’t all geologists accept
the evidence and agree that the biblical Flood
accounts for the rock and fossil records?

Such questions demonstrate that most people
do not understand how geologists deal with
the rock and fossil evidence. The only facts are
that the rocks and fossils are observed in layers.
They can be measured and tested repeatedly
in the present.

When it comes to explaining
how the rocks and fossils
formed, however, those are
events that occurred in the
past. They can’t be repeated
and observed. Thus, explanations
about how rocks and
fossils formed in the past
are interpretations, not facts.

Sure, we can observe and study today how
sediments are deposited in layers. But to say that
sediments have always accumulated in the past
at the rates we observe today is an assumption.
It’s an interpretation based on man’s ideas about
the past and is not a
proven fact.

Ironically, repeatable
measurements
and field observations
today are demonstrating
that sedimentary
rock layers had to
accumulate rapidly.1
Yet, rather than abandon
their millions-of-years
dogma to explain
the formation of the
rock layers, most geologists arbitrarily
put the millions of years between the
layers. And that’s in spite of the fact
that there are no erosion features at
the boundaries between the layers to
indicate the passage of the supposed
millions of years.2

So if geologists didn’t observe the
slow formation of the rocks and fossils
in the past, can we be sure how quickly
they formed? Yes! Past events can be
confirmed on the basis of eyewitness
testimony, just as court cases depend
on eyewitness testimonies.

God’s Word provides us with an
eyewitness testimony of the earth’s
early history—Creation, Corruption,
and Catastrophe (the Flood). God
was present and He has told us what
happened. The overwhelming evidence
for the rapid formation of rock
layers and fossils is consistent with,
and thus confirms, God’s trustworthy,
infallible, eyewitness testimony.

How then could most scientists
be wrong? Easily! As we emphasize
in the Creation Museum, scientists’
interpretations of the evidence begin
with, and are framed by, their starting
point. Put another way, who or
what are they going to trust? Can
scientists by their own observations
and reasoning alone establish what
happened in the past?

Most scientists, even those who
are Christians, have chosen only to
view the evidence and interpret it
using human reasoning alone! They
have bought into the idea that God’s
Word is irrelevant when it comes to
studying the earth’s history.

That’s how most scientists are
wrong. They have chosen finite, fallible
man’s word over the Word of
the infinite, infallible, all-powerful
Creator God. It’s an issue of who is
the ultimate authority.

Christians who are scientists are
also wrong if they do not choose
God’s Word as their ultimate authority.
Peer pressure, academic respectability,
and human pride are all snares. It’s
hard to stand against the tide of the
secular scientific consensus.

Jesus Christ walked across the
surface of the Sea of Galilee in a
storm (Matthew 14:22–33). As the
Creator and Sustainer (Colossians 1:16–17),
He could defy gravity. With
Jesus’s approval, Peter also began to
walk across the water. But as soon as
he took his eyes off Jesus (the Word),
and feared the danger of the storm
(the world), he sank and would have
drowned had Jesus not rescued him.

No matter how impressive the
apparent weight of evidence as interpreted
by most scientists may seem,
to take our eyes off God’s Word as
our ultimate authority will never lead
us to the truth about the earth’s past.
The fear of the Lord—not man—is
the beginning of knowledge and
wisdom (Proverbs 1:7; 9:10).